Optical transmitters, receivers and transceivers are used for converting electrical data into optical data for transmission on optical fibers and for converting optical data back into electrical data for processing by network equipment. Normally, an optical transmitter includes a light source, such as a laser driver and a laser diode, and an optical receiver includes a light conversion device, such as a post amplifier, a trans-impedance amplifier and a PIN photodiode or an APD. The transmitter or receiver is generally mounted on a network circuit board to interface with other data processing IC chips, such as a serializer or de-serializer, a data framer for coding, such as 8B/10B coding, and a higher level data control IC. This type of structure, however, fails to perform when the data transport rate reaches around 10 Gbps or beyond, as the electric traces on the printed circuit board introduce noises and jitters and distort the signal integrity at such a high frequency.
Current technology requires that a serializer and de-serializer be integrated into the transmitter and receiver module or modules to allow electrical interfaces to operate at lower frequency. As an example, for an OC192 data rate, the electrical interfaces for the data link module will require 16 channels of 622 Mbps. The module, which is called a fiber optical transponder, can then be mounted onto the board to interface with other IC chips to fulfill the network management function. Consequently, the module requires many electrical interfaces, typically with more than 50 pins. The large number of pins and the extra internal circuitry dictates that the module size is large. The power consumption is also a serious issue.
It would be highly advantageous, therefore, to remedy the foregoing and other deficiencies inherent in the prior art.
Accordingly, it is an object the present invention to provide a new and improved high-speed optical data link.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved high-speed optical data link capable of conveying data at around 10 Gbps rates or beyond.
And another object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved high-speed optical data link that is simple and relatively inexpensive to manufacture.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved high-speed optical data link that is smaller than prior art devices and less electrical pin counts capable of conveying information at similar rates.